Flashback (Out of the Box Book 23)

by Robert J. Crane

  “Hmm,” Gerasimos said. The black and white photo suggested little to him besides carnage, but Bastet had people on the ground working with the Iowa authorities under cover as federal officers. It was all very neat, and a benefit of having fingers in every major government worldwide. “Not as tough as we thought? Perhaps her handling of Wolfe was a fluke.”

  “Perhaps,” Bastet said, “though it's entirely possible that this shotgun attack was a lucky hit. Either way, she's injured. Badly.”

  “Survivable?” Gerasimos said, looking out over London. Dawn was already on the eastern horizon, and his tea was cool. He'd been awake for hours, working for most of that time. So much to do, so many projects to oversee. Omega never stopped.

  “Perhaps, with medical treatment.”

  Gerasimos let out a bark of a laugh. “They'd be fools to go to a local hospital. Neither Lethe nor Sierra will make that mistake.”

  “For someone who is possibly part of their family?” Bastet's eyes gleamed. “I think they'll seek a way to treat her, even absent conventional avenues.”

  “This gives you an idea?” Gerasimos asked.

  “It does,” Bastet said, and she explained.

  Gerasimos smiled when she was done. “It certainly wouldn't hurt to check.” Another of the faxed photographs lay on his desk and he picked it up. It was that same dark-haired girl, the troublesome one. “This one...I like her brand of trouble.” He looked up. “Get her if you can. Alive if possible. Dead if you have to.”

  “Will do,” Bastet said, taking her cue and heading for the door.

  “Oh, Bast?” Gerasimos looked up. “One other thing...”

  She cocked her head at him. So very catlike.

  “The blood,” Gerasimos said. “Have our people collect as much of it as possible.”

  She nodded. “It will be done.” And she was gone.

  Gerasimos nodded, looking at the photograph again. Would the blood help with the Andromeda project? Perhaps, perhaps not. But there were other uses, of course. Gerasimos turned in his chair and looked out at the London skyline and pondered the future.

  30.

  Sienna

  I awoke to pain, sharp, but not as bad as it had been when I'd passed out in the back seat of the car. My breathing was steady, not gasping, and all the muscles in my back had settled from a loud, screaming sort of agony into quiet, mewling desperation.

  “Ohhhh,” I muttered into a metal table, my mouth and cheek mashed against chilly steel. I looked sideways. There was no one in my field of vision. “...Hello?”

  “Hey,” my mother said, appearing beside me. She put a hand on my shoulder, but only for a second. “Lie still. You lost a lot of blood, and we only just finished getting the lead out of you.”

  “Lethe...opened me up?” I asked, trying to look over my shoulder. My back was covered in several layers of bloody gauze.

  “And stitched you closed again,” she said, “to speed up the healing.”

  “Good idea,” I said. “I don't want to think about how long it'd have taken to heal if she'd just left me open to the lungs.”

  My mother pursed her lips. “You might not have. Your body does have limits, after all.”

  “Yeah, well...I keep trying to find them by hard experimentation,” I said, trying to decide whether rolling over was an option. I decided after another minute of pondering the bloody swaths of my back...nope. No, it was not.

  My mother's face fell. “I went through a phase like that. When I was probably your age.”

  I chortled, then stopped because boy, did it hurt. “You don't know how old I am.”

  She nodded slowly. “That's true. And you won't tell me.”

  “It's for your own good,” I said, taking another breath, slowly, feeling the seeping pain. I hadn't realized how much of my agony had stemmed from the buckshot that had been rattling around in my lungs. Or maybe my grandmother had dosed me with painkillers. My back certainly wasn't in great condition, possibly even worse than it had been last time I'd gone out. She had been forced to crack me open to the lungs to extract the buckshot, after all, and while I healed quickly, I didn't heal that quickly. “No one should know too much about their future. You might end up changing it.”

  “Like you're doing?” she asked, and boy did it carry the pointed weight of accusation. It was pure mom, like the perfect summation of every conversation she and I ever had, all passive-aggressive Minnesotan turned into a weapon she could club me with.

  “Pretty sure this is fated in some way,” I said. “I don't think I'm doing anything now that I haven't...already done.” I lost the plot at the end, finishing lamely. “You know what I mean. This is a predestination paradox. Lethe, in my time, had already lived these events, I'm pretty sure.”

  “So many qualifiers in there,” she said. “You're not sure of anything. You don't even remember living this.”

  “No, and – hey, where am I?” I looked around. “Other me, I mean.”

  “Lethe is with her in the back office,” my mother said. “She's still sleeping.” She nodded her head behind me. “We're in an animal hospital.”

  I looked down at the steel table. “Oh. Well. That beats a mob hospital, though that would have been more in keeping with the theme of this evening.”

  “I don't know where any of those are in the area,” my mother said, “and I only knew about the casino because...apparently everyone knew about the casino.”

  “That is some seriously rotten corruption in the upper Midwest,” I said, “an underground casino everyone knows about and the cops never shut down.”

  She shrugged. “Sometimes that happens. We got the money, anyway. And as soon as you're a little better, we can hit the road. We have to be out of here before day breaks.”

  “Right,” I said. “Employees will probably start showing up, and it'd be better if we weren't here for that.”

  “It'd be nice to get a head start out of town, too,” she said. “Any idea where we need to go?”

  I smacked my lips together. They were utterly dry, but I didn't want to ask for water. “Minneapolis.”

  She cocked her head at me. “Why?”

  “It's where I grew up,” I said, fighting the urge to shrug, mostly because it would cause me unspeakable pain to do so.

  “Minneapolis it is, then,” she said. She was looking a little grey in the face. “You know...when I saw you limping out of the casino, blood all over the place, your grandmother carrying you...” She looked down at her feet. “Well, I thought the worst might have happened.”

  “Seems it got a little touch and go there for a while,” I said. “But hey, I pulled through.”

  “Yes, you did,” she said, looking away. “Is this a regular thing for you?”

  “I don't really get injured like this very often anymore,” I said, trying to figure out how I could tell the truth without alarming her by speaking the entirety of it. I doubted it would sound like, Back when I had Wolfe in my head, I'd almost die on a consistent basis, but now that I don't have instant-healing powers at my disposal, I have to be a little more cautious before leaping into fatal danger.

  No, that would not do at all.

  “'Anymore'?” my mother asked, picking out the one word I wished I could vacuum back into my stupid mouth.

  “I went through a learning curve when I first took up the trade, you know,” I said, trying to be breezy and blow through it like it was no big deal. “Took some hits, some injuries I shouldn't have. I was reckless. I'm older and wiser now.”

  “But you won't tell me how old.”

  “A lady never discusses her age,” I said, forcing a smile.

  “This is maddening,” my mother said, breaking off. “You could be twenty or a thousand for all I can tell.”

  “That's the succubus genetics at work,” I agreed. “Though I imagine I'd be a little more aged if I was a thousand, since you were showing it a little bit by the time I was grown up.”

  She shot me a dark look that ended in a
malicious smile. “That's probably your fault, if I had to guess.”

  I pondered how to answer that, settling on, “Well...you're not wrong.”

  “I should have known,” my mother said, turning her back on me. “They say daughters are punishment for how you treated your mother. Well, Lethe's going to have a hell of a lot of laughs at my expense, I'm guessing, because I was hell on wheels for her from start to finish.”

  “But hey, at least you weren't crazy Charlie,” I said. “Small favors.”

  “Charlie behaved fine as a kid,” she said. “It was only after she manifested that she started to go off the rails into being psychotic and murderous. Something about getting a taste of power, especially the succubus power...”

  “It does have a certain draw,” I said, shifting very slightly on the steel table and being rewarded with a bout of extreme pain for my trouble. “One of the reasons I try not to use them, personally.”

  “Yes,” she said. “Better to not have to deal with-” She froze, and I heard something clatter behind her. “Did you hear that?”

  “I did,” I said, using one hand to push myself up to an elbow. Stars flashed in front of my vision, and I almost blacked out. “Was that Lethe?”

  “Came from the wrong direction,” my mother said, turning to face the doorway behind her. “It's not her.” She hunched over into a ready stance, and fumbled at the nearby table, coming up with my MP5. I could tell by the blood dripping off the strap.

  “You know how to use that thing?” I asked.

  “I used to use them in the Agency all the time,” she said, “I'm a surgeon with an MP5.”

  “Yeah, well, don't use it to operate on me. I'm good already.”

  She pulled the sight picture up, bracing the stock against her shoulder. There was another noise, clanging, and I heard swearing under someone's breath, very quietly, in the next room.

  My mother had her finger on the trigger, and we waited. I tried to sit all the way up but failed, miserably, thumping back down on my elbow. “Whatever comes through that door...probably best to open up first and ask questions later,” I said, meta-low.

  She nodded.

  I waited for the door to open. There was definitely someone in there, moving around. They'd made loud noises twice, which suggested clumsiness. A worker, come in early? A cop investigating a reported break-in?

  Or some idiot lackey of Omega's?

  I held my breath as I waited to find out.

  It didn't take long.

  The door in front of us burst off its hinges, slamming to the ground as someone – something – burst through it.

  Something big.

  Something black. And metal, covering every square inch of his human figure.

  Full Metal Jackass.

  “So loud, Henderschott,” came the hissing voice that followed the man in black armor. A large silhouette followed in Henderschott's wake, massive frame slightly hunched over like the animal he was.

  Wolfe.

  They'd found us.

  31.

  My mother opened up, pointlessly, ripping off a long series of earsplitting shots that pinged off Henderschott's armor and hurt Wolfe not at all. She readjusted her aim after the first burst, focusing in on Henderschott, aiming for the holes in his armor-

  The black-armored bastard reached out and held a hand over the barrel of her gun as she squeezed off a shot. It made a noise that I didn't care for, something like steel against steel, and then he yanked it out of her hand, throwing it across the room behind Wolfe.

  I was watching the whole thing unfold, paralytic screaming running down every nerve ending in my back as I tried to stand and failed, the muscle tissue still utterly shredded. I collapsed onto my side, making a noise that I wouldn't have been proud of under any circumstances.

  It sounded like failure.

  My mother took a swing at Henderschott, ringing his bell as she cracked her knuckles across his metal helmet to little effect. His head moved slightly under the impact, eyes anchored on her. She swung again, and he clamped a hand on her wrist.

  The crack was audible, and so was my mother's gasp as he crushed her wrist.

  “Henderschott, your mother screwed a pack of wild dogs about nine months before you were born,” I said, affixing a long string of epithets to the end of my insult. Some of it was motivated by pain, some of it by a desire to hurt his feelings as much as I could. “That's why Wolfe tore your face off. He smelled competition, and there's only room for one alpha dog in Omega.”

  Henderschott cocked his head at me, then glanced back at Wolfe. “What's she talking about?”

  “Just running her mouth,” Wolfe said, baring his teeth. “Trying to distract you.”

  “Yeah,” my mother said, “for this.”

  Leaning against Henderschott's death grip against her hand, my mother pulled down, hard, committing all her weight against his ironclad clamp. She bucked and threw her legs up as Henderschott's eyes widened in surprise. She mule-kicked him in the metal helm, and it would have registered on the Richter scale if there'd been a sensor nearby.

  Henderschott staggered from the hit, letting my mother's wrist go as he stumbled back into a rolling tray with bloody surgical equipment on it. Over the crash I could hear dogs barking somewhere else in the hospital, clearly not thrilled with our little war.

  “Hey, Henderschott,” I said, listening, “I think I hear your father calling you.”

  Wolfe chuckled, hanging back out of the fight. “Such a clever girl. What should we call you, little doll?” He looked at me, cocking his head a little. “Wolfe thinks he knows. How about...Juliet?”

  I stuck out my tongue and feigned a gagging noise. The best I could do right now was to lie here and try to give my mom cover to work while I distracted them. “Ugh. Don't expect me to call you Romeo, you big, hairy crapbag.”

  My mother, flat on her back, kicked Wolfe in the shin as he took a step toward me. It was another epically rattling blow, and it had all the effect of...nothing. Wolfe glanced down at her, then swept a quick kick at her, sending her spiraling sideways into a shelving unit, where she crashed hard enough that the top shelves bent under the force of the impact and all manner of medical supply boxes came dumping down onto her. My mother disappeared under the avalanche of stuff.

  “Now...where were we, before we were so...rudely interrupted?” Wolfe asked, creeping in on me.

  “I was trying to get up to leave,” I said, holding very still, not because I wanted to, necessarily, but because squirming now would only hurt like hell while doing nothing to aid my cause, “but unfortunately, I can't, which is, I'm sure, a huge bonus for you, Wolfe, a man for whom an ambulatory woman is a big, big negative.” I kept my gaze steady on him as he closed, trying to instill fear in me just by his slow pace. “I know you love the hunt, but it must be frustrating for your ego that every woman takes a look at you and says, 'Oh, hell no, I want the hell away from that thing'.”

  Wolfe licked his lips, but I saw a twitch at the corner of his eye that suggested his defiance was taking place in the face of my insults to his pride. “You think you know the Wolfe? Just by reputation?”

  “No, I've smelled your milk-bone breath before,” I said, keeping very, very still and trying not to let the thought of what he'd do to me override my sense of reason. If he got his hands on me, these were very likely to be my last moments not in agonizing pain, and I wanted to use them to do as much damage as I could. “And can I just say – in the days since you were part of the three-headed dog trio, they've done wonders in advancing the cause of mouth bacteria extermination. Have you considered mouthwash? Dental strips? Maybe Beggin' Strips in your case-”

  Wolfe had reached the side of my surgical table, and leered down at me, not even touching me yet. “The Wolfe can smell your fear.”

  “Oh, that's not fear, that's urine,” I said. “I didn't get a catheter before surgery; can you believe it? Definitely not leaving this place a five-star review on Yelp.”


  Wolfe frowned at me just slightly. “Yelp?”

  “I guess you probably don't have that yet,” I said. “My bad.”

  “It's what you'll be doing soon,” Wolfe said, getting back on his intimidation mission. He was a master at it, too. He brought his hands up now, but still didn't touch me, just hovered them over me, a single finger dancing over my body as though deciding, with such difficulty, where he wanted to touch first. “Oh, little doll. Do you like the anticipation? Wolfe loves anticipation-”

  “Really?” I asked. “You strike me as a guy who'd get kind of premature with the action. Now Frederick or Grihm, they seem like men who actually know what a woman wants-”

  Wolfe's eyes flared with anger, and he moved to grab me by the throat.

  What could I do, lying flat on the table, my back shredded like hamburger, or, as I like to think of, pre-prepared for Wolfe?

  Well...there were a few things. I was still faster than him.

  I caught his hand as he surged at me. Wrestling and trying to overpower him was a futile idea, but even Wolfe had bones and joints, and while he had tremendous healing powers and an immunity to being damaged in certain ways thanks to long-ranging adaptation to injury, I had a suspicion that he'd probably never really sat down and practiced various joint locks on himself in an effort to really build up the resistance of his connective tissue to injury. Because only a lunatic would do that.

  So I caught his hand, the motion sending a scream of pain down my back. It almost made me drop his hand-

  But I didn't. And the force of my slap caused his fist to thump against the table about an inch from my neck, his hand clutched in mine.

  I rolled my other hand over to his, bracing it against his wrist. I had his whole hand captured on both sides. His face flashed irritation, and I sensed he was about to strike back.

  With all my strength, I pressed against his knuckles with one hand and under his palm with the other, bowing his wrist forcefully, pushing his palm toward the inside of his forearm at about a hundred miles an hour.